Resisting the Hegemony of School Bureaucracy and Organizing for Safe Schools: First Generation Immigrant Asian Students Develop Activist Identities and Literacies

Abstract

This chapter examined the lived experiences of first generation Asian immigrant student activists, who waged a powerful struggle against school violence in a large urban high school. Their struggle resisted the hegemonic practices of the district bureaucracy around racial harassment, bullying, and treatment of immigrant students, especially English Language Learners (ELLs). Mobilizing both inside and outside of school, the student activists initiated legal action, organized among their high school peers and in the Asian community, and disrupted dominant discourses about the Asian community and the abilities of first generation immigrant youth.

Using ethnographic methods such as interviews, focus groups, and analysis of archival data, the author focused on four student leaders from working class backgrounds, examining the identities and literacies they developed in the process of understanding the power dynamics between dominant institutions and racialized communities. Moreover, using the lenses of Bourdieusian and Freirean social theory, this qualitative study looked at the roles that culture and ideology, broadly construed, played in the young people’s political development and their post-secondary trajectories. This work also built on the work of Shawn Ginwright, Julio Cammarota, and Michelle Fine on youth activism and community change. The significance of this chapter lies in its contribution to the research about the intersectionality of race/ethnicity, class, immigration status, and youth activism, in particular for first generation immigrant youth.

Citation

Yee, M. (2017), "Resisting the Hegemony of School Bureaucracy and Organizing for Safe Schools: First Generation Immigrant Asian Students Develop Activist Identities and Literacies", The Power of Resistance (Advances in Education in Diverse Communities, Vol. 12), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 191-219. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1479-358X20140000012010